FBI agents Benjamin Grogan, 53, and Jerry Dove, 30, became the 26th and 27th FBI agents killed in the line of duty when they were shot and killed in the "FBI Shootout" near Suniland Shopping Center in south Dade on April 11, 1986. The two bank robberkillers being chased were also killed and five other FBI agents were wounded, three seriously, in the "bloodiest day" in the 79-year history of the FBI.
Special Agent Gordon McNeill, 44, headed a special FBI task force of 14 agents trying to solve a string of bank and armored car robberies that had plagued the south Dade area for 18 months. The robberies usually occurred on a Friday (payday) and involved banks and armored cars in the South Dixie Highway area from Dadeland to S.W. 147 St. In addition to taking more than $100,000 in cash from armored trucks and banks, the pair of bandits had shot several people---usually "execution style"---killing some.
The FBI assigned the task force to a "rolling stake-out" of likely targets on April 11. The 14-man team had 10 unmarked cars to cover a 5 & 12 stretch of Dixie Highway. They had a description of the two robbers---two white males in their late 20's or early 30's. They also were on the lookout for a dark Monte Carlo with license tag no. NTJ-891 that had been used in two previous robberies. The Monte Carlo and tag number belonged to Jose Collazo who had been shot four times and left for dead on March 12 by two "rednecks" at a West Dade rock pit. Collazo played dead and later crawled 1 & 12 miles for help. He provided the FBI with a detailed description of his two assailants and their white pickup.
The Miami Herald ran a lengthy story on page one of its Local News on March 29 (13 days before the shootout) entitled, "Thieves Stalking Shooters in Glades." The article stated that two white males had shot three men at the same rock pit just south of the Tamiami Trail at 157th Ave. The entry road to the killing ground was marked by a "familiar Trail landmark, a deteriorating concrete arch that is a relic of a long-defunct commercial development."
The Herald article also suggested a connection between the Everglades shootings and the string of armed robberies on S. Dixie by noting that Collazo's (his name was not given) Monte Carlo had been used in the robbery of the Barnett Bank at 13594 S. Dixie. The newspaper reported that the two white males were being sought for "half a dozen armored car and bank robberies" and included artist sketches of the two killers who were thought to be "survivalists." The two robberskillers were described as extremely dangerous given their willingness to kill just to steal a car and because of the "arsenal" (including "assault-style rifles" such as the Mini-14) they were known to have. Assuming that the robbers read the Herald story, it is amazing that they continued to use the "hot" Monte Carlo.
Around 9:15AM on April 11, Special Agents Benjamin Grogan and Jerry Dove were heading north on South Dixie Highway when they spotted just in front of them what they were looking for---a black Monte Carlo with Florida license No. NTJ-891, occupied by two white males. Grogan used the FBI car radio (at 9:17AM) to alert all units that he and Dove had spotted the black Monte Carlo and were behind it at Dixie and 124th St. The 12 other agents waiting in cars nearby knew they had a "hit." The FBI also notified the Metro-Dade Police dispatcher that they were following the two men suspected to be the robberkillers.
The occupants evidently recognized they were being followed and made a right turn at S.W. 117th St. The driver was William R. Matix, 34, and his passenger was Michael Lee Platt, 32. Platt and Matix were heavily armed as they were probably about to rob a bank or armored car in the area (a second getaway vehicle--a white pickup--was later found nearby). Platt had a .357 Magnum in a shoulder holster and Matix had a .357 Dan Wesson revolver in a shoulder holster. On the seat between them was a Smith & Wesson 12-gauge shotgun fitted with a pistol grip and a Ruger Mini-12 semi-automatic assault rifle with several 30-shot magazine clips.
Matix drove east two short blocks on S.W. 117th St., turned right (south) onto S.W. 81st Rd. for one long block, made a short right (west) jog on S.W. 120th St., and then turned left (south) on S.W. 82nd Ave. for one block toward the scene of the shootout. South Dixie runs parallel to 82nd Ave. with the back of the strip shopping centers on the eastern side of the Highway comprising the western side of 82nd Ave. S.W. 122nd St. deadends into the back of the Dixie Belle Shopping Center (which faces west on Dixie) at 82nd Ave.---the location of the shootout.
By the time Matix and Platt were on 82nd Ave. there were three FBI cars behind them. Grogan (the driver) and Dove were in the first car, a lemon-yellow 1985 Buick Century. The second car, a gold Chrysler, was occupied by agents John Hanlon (the driver) and Edmundo Mireles, 37. The third car, a blue Buick, was driven by agent Richard A. Manauzzi. The procession of four cars was traveling about 35 mph on 82nd Ave. as it passed Dr. H.R. Frick's Animal Orthopedic Hospital and the rear of a Farm Store.
Supervisor McNeill was racing to the scene from the south and met the "motorcade" going in the opposite direction on S.W. 120 St. Suddenly, McNeill saw the fugitive vehicle coming toward him, and two things burned into his mind: Matix, behind the wheel, had a terrifying intensity of facial expression that made the FBI leader think, "Man on a mission." And beside him, the mustachioed and cold-eyed Platt was shoving a magazine into the belly of what McNeill recognized as a Ruger Mini-14. (Ayoob, 1989:71)
McNeill passed the line of cars and "spun his Olds around to follow." He radioed to the others what he had seen and, "fearing that the gunmen could wreak havoc if they got back on the Dixie highway," he made the "fateful decision" and yelled into the microphone (at 9:19AM), "Felony carstop! Let's do it!" This command triggered a procedure that every FBI agent is taught at the Quantico, VA, FBI Academy. The object of the Felony Car Stop is to "stop a fleeing vehicle while enabling police to control the vehicle's movement and maintain cover from any gunfire."
The agents tried to "box in" the fugitives as Grogan accelerated around the Monte Carlo on the driver's side while Hanlon tried to move up on the right side as Manauzzi moved up from behind. But Matix swerved to the right, hitting the Chrysler and knocking it into a tree and against a wall of an FPL substation. The Monte Carlo hit a post on the right side of the roadway and stalled as "fluid spewed wildly" from the radiator.
Matix was able to restart the stalled Monte Carlo, made a U-turn and "rocketed north". But the temporary stall of the Monte Carlo gave Grogan and Manauzzi time to also make a U-turn and Manauzzi rammed the Monte Carlo hard on the driver's side. "The two cars "locked together" and traveled 30 yards as they "careened up and over the sidewalk" and "slammed into" a tree in the driveway of a duplex at 12201 S.W. 82nd Ave. The time was 9:20AM.
Matix and Platt's Monte Carlo was pinned on the right by two vehicles (a Cutlass and a Camaro) parked at the residence and on the driver's side by Manauzzi's blue Buick. Matix and Platt began firing almost immediately. Platt, after finding he couldn't open the passenger door, crawled out of the window with the Mini-14 assault rifle and "slithered across" the hood of the Cutlass "crouching between the right front corner of the Cutlass and the left front of the Camaro."
Platt was hit at least twice by Silvertip 9mm bullets as he exited the Monte Carlo. One bullet came from Agent Ron Reisner and one from Dove. The wound from Dove's gun was (eventually) fatal as Platt was hit in the pectoral muscle and blood began to spurt from his chest each time his heart pumped. An autopsy later revealed that Platt would have died from his wound even if he had been taken immediately to a hospital at that point.
Manauzzi was the first agent hit---with a blast from Matix's shotgun from the car next to him. He could not return fire as he had unholstered his handgun and placed it on the seat beside him before the crash and it had "disappeared" during the crash. He was grazed across the back and crawled out of his car and to cover and searched for a weapon to return fire. "ONE AGENT DOWN."
Seconds later, Grogan and Dove arrived in their yellow Buick and parked behind the Monte Carlo. Seeing Matix firing the shotgun from inside the Monte Carlo, they "slid hurriedly out the driver's-side door, (and) knelt in sparse grass behind the left rear of their Buick and began firing." Both had 9mm semi-automatic pistols. It appears that they did not see Platt (who later shot and killed them) who had ducked down behind the Cutlass and the Camaro.
Agent Gordon McNeill then arrived at the shooting scene in his yellow Buick LeSabre. He "jerked the car to a halt, the front end perpendicular to the back of Manauzzi's car and the front of Grogan's." McNeill, the only agent wearing a bulletproof vest, jumped from his car and dove behind the trunk of his car. He was able to get off two rounds from his handgun which "disabled" Matix, sitting in the driver's seat, and "neutralized Matix for the entire firefight." Matix then "disappeared" until he was seen inside Grogan's vehicle with Platt at the end of the gunfight.
Hanlon and Mireles, after crashing, into the wall across the street, exited their vehicle and ran across the street. Hanlon joined Grogan and Dove who were taking cover behind the trunk of their car. Mireles took cover with McNeill behind the Buick LeSabre.
McNeill, firing a Smith & Wesson revolver, was hit in the right hand and then in the back (just outside the bulletproof vest) by Platt with the Ruger Mini-14. The weapon fires slugs at 3,200 feet a second. It is designed so that the .223-caliber slugs spin out of the barrel, tumbling almost. When they strike the human body, they shred internal organs. (Miami Herald, 4201986)
McNeill "stumbled six yards into the middle of 82nd Avenue and fell." "TWO AGENTS DOWN."
Platt, from about 15 feet away, hit Mireles in the left forearm, "severing the bone in one place and splintering it in others." He fell alongside McNeil's LeSabre. "THREE AGENTS DOWN."
Agents Ronald Reisner and Gilbert Orrantia arrived as Mireles fell and parked their car across 82nd Ave. Both exited their vehicle and began firing their handguns. Orrantia ran out of ammunition and got back into his vehicle to reload when he was hit by fire from Matix that went through the dash and splintered all over the car. " FOUR AGENTS DOWN."
Platt "kept bobbing up and down beside the Cutlass like a carnival target---only he was returning fire." Attempting to get out of the line of fire of Reisner, Platt crept toward the trunk of the Cutlass (and toward Hanlon, Grogan and Dove). Reisner screamed at the three agents, "He's coming around," but they didn't hear him (perhaps because of "auditory exclusion") as they were focusing their attention on Platt who was still inside the Monte Carlo.
At the last moment, Hanlon saw Platt moving toward his position, and armed only with a back-up handgun, fired five shots at the approaching gunman. As Hanlon crouched down to reload, Platt opened fire on the three agents behind the Buick. He leaned over the trunk of Grogan's Buick (with "his own blood hemorrhaging all over the car") and fired almost point-blank at the three agents. Matix shot Grogan once in the chest. He died instantly. He then shot Dove twice in the head. He also died instantly. Hanlon, out of ammunition, was shot in the hand, forearm and groin but was able to roll under the Buick and out of the line of fire. "SEVEN AGENTS DOWN."
Platt then shot at---but missed---Mireles who was sitting on the ground behind the LeSabre. As blood continued to spurt from Platt's wound, he apparently decided to "make a break for it." The only agent still "up and firing" was Reisner and he was across the street. Platt staggered to the driver's door of Grogan's yellow Buick and got in the driver's seat. Platt exited the Monte Carlo and started toward the passenger's seat to join his partner in escape.
Mireles then "levered the shotgun up with his good right arm and fired" at Platt, hitting him in the foot as he got into the yellow Buick. Mireles then reloaded the shotgun with one hand (the other was shattered) and fired four more shots, hitting both Platt and Matix. Two other shotgun blasts from Mireles hit the engine. In a last desperate move, Platt turned the ignition, the car started, and he put it in drive. But then Mireles hit both Platt and Matix with three more shots and Reisner, who had reached the door of the "getaway" vehicle, reached inside and pulled Platt out. When Platt's foot came off the brake, the car "lurched forward" and rolled into Manauzzi's blue Buick. Platt, though fatally wounded, saw that the shotgun blasts were coming from Mireles, and struggled out of the car and toward Mireles with a .357 handgun in his left hand as his right hand had been shattered. (Agents Orrantia and Reisner did not see Platt walking toward Mireles but civilian witnesses later reported the incident.) Platt walked toward Mireles and fired at him three times from almost point blank range but missed. Mireles never saw Platt and did not see or hear the shots fired at him. Platt then struggled back to the Buick. Mireles pushes himself to his feet, his giant body swaying as the dead left arm hangs loose at his side, dripping blood as his other hand reaches under his windbreaker and closes on the familiar grip of his Smith & Wesson revolver. Mireles moves forward, leaving his cover, tottering into the kill zone and into the muzzles of the shotgun and the assault rifle he knows is waiting for him. One of the citizens cringing behind their windows will say that Mireles was 'stonewalking' in this last terrible moment. Stiff legged, his bulk swaying like Frankenstein's monster, his bullet-shattered left arm hanging beside him, Mireles drives himself forward toward the two killers, his K-frame Smith & Wesson at arms's length ahead of him. And, in the last moment of their lives, the murderers see it. Platt comes up with the long-barrel Magnum and Matix reaches for his gun. But it is too late. Ed Mireles can feel himself passing out, can see darkness closing in on his vision until there is only a narrow tunnel left. He concentrates on the face of the cop-killer at the end of the tunnel...(and fires his weapon)...into the brain of the murderer Platt. He sees the gunman jerk, and fires again to be sure, and because the other murderer is in the shadows of the car Mireles stumbles forward until he can see his face before he fires one, two, three times and sees the force of the +P bullets slam Matix against the doorpost. Now he is virtually on top of Platt, just outside the door, as he fires the sixth and final shot. This bullet, like the five before it, tunnels deep into vital tissue and lodges mushroomed in the gunman's head. And in the last seconds, his gun empty, Mireles realizes that Ron Reisner and the bleeding Gil Orrantia, his gun finally reloaded, have run forward and are beside him as the corpse of Platt tumbles onto the pavement at his feet. (Ayoob, 1989)
Platt had been hit 12 times and Matix, 6 times. Both had been hit in the spine and paralyzed. The time was 9:22AM.
Metro-Dade police, alerted earlier that morning (around 8:30AM) to the location of the FBI stakeout and (later) to the "chase" of the two suspects, responded with two police cars to the scene of the shootout at 9:22AM and "set up a perimeter." The arriving Metro-Dade officers were aware of what was happening and did not believe the shootout was between two drug gangs (as suggested by the later TV movie). However, since the FBI did not have on jackets that identified them, the Metro-Dade officers were initially unsure as to which "shooters" were with the FBI and which were "the bad guys." Metro-Dade Det. Marty Heckman and his partner, Leo Figueroa, in plainclothes, arrived during the gun battle. Det. Heckman saw wounded, and apparently paralyzed, agent McNeill lying in the middle of the street exposed to gunfire. McNeill was saying, "Help me. Help me. I'm paralyzed." Heckman "squatted down and did a duck-walk over to McNeill and covered the agent's chest with his body. Figueroa rushed toward Mireles arriving just as Mireles had "finished off" the two killers. Both officers later received Metro's Silver Medal of Valor "for acts of bravery performed despite great personal danger."
During the 5 & 12-minute shootout, Metro-Dade police estimated that 140 rounds were fired, 75 by the agents and 65 by Platt and Matix. Four men (Grogan, Dove, Platt and Matix) had been killed. McNeill, Hanlon, and Mireles had been seriously wounded and were rushed to hospitals by arriving rescue personnel. Manauzzi and Orrantia were treated for superficial wounds at Jackson Memorial Hospital and released the same day. Reisner was the only agent not hit by gunfire.
During the shootout cars continued to travel down 82nd Ave. as drivers were unaware that they were driving through a crossfire. News reports suggested that many drove through the gun battle "even as bystanders frantically waved them to stop." It appears that none were hit by the gunfire. Agents held their fire at some points fearing for the safety of innocent passersby (though Matix and Platt kept firing). Several neighbors witnessed the shootout from their nearby homes. They could not distinguish the "good guys" from the "bad guys" since the FBI agents were not in uniform. Some thought they were witnessing a shootout among rival drug dealers.
The residents across the street from the shoot-out scene knew Matix and Platt as their gardeners but did not realize they were involved in the shootout. U. of Miami senior Cory Sukert, who lived in the duplex at 12201 S.W. 82nd Ave., looked out his window and saw the beginning of the shootout but dove for cover when shots began coming through the window. He crawled to a phone and dialed 911. Weeks later he sold his bullet riddled automobile for $2,000 (it was worth $700) to a souvenir collector.
There has been much discussion as to whether the FBI was "outgunned" on April 11, 1986. The 8 agents at the scene had with them two five-shot 12-gauge shot guns, three 15-shot 9mm autoloaders, five .357 revolvers and two 5-shot, 2" Chief Specials---a total of 12 loaded weapons. They thus had a 3:1 advantage in weapons (Platt and Matix had two long guns and two handguns) and a 4:1 advantage in manpower. However, one shotgun was in the backseat of McNeill's car and was inaccessible to the agents during the shootout and two handguns (belonging to Manauzzi and Hanlon) became inaccessible after the car crashes.
The firepower of the Mini-14 fired by Platt proved decisive in the gun battle as the deaths of Grogan and Dove and the serious gunshot wounds to Hanlon, Mireles and McNeill were all from the .223 ammunition being fired by Platt's Mini-14. Metro-Dade police later estimated that 42 of the 49 rounds fired by the two bank robbers were from Platt's Mini-14. Two of the FBI agents on the 14-man stakeout did have fully automatic machine guns but, unfortunately, they did not arrive at the scene until the shooting ended.
Also, McNeill was the only agent who had the protection of a bullet-proof vest during the shootout. Finally, the best-trained (for a shootout) agent at the scene, Ben Grogan, was "myopic" and lost his glasses during the car crash. During the shootout he could see no more than ten feet in front of him. One agent heard Grogan shout, "Where is everybody?"
Clearly, the FBI was outgunned on April 11, 1986, but to argue that agents should always (or even often) carry assault rifles and submachine guns on stakeouts for robbers is to argue from the atypical case. The shootout represented a type of incident and weaponry that the FBI had not faced before and will likely seldom face again. Some police departments did begin to arm officers with automatic handguns as a result of the shootout but few thought that the shootout proved the need to (generally) carry assault type long guns. The shootout did "teach" the importance of additional ammunition and multiple clips and the importance of back-up guns when other weapons become inaccessible.